Improvement of productivity is a mandatory issue in every organization and many trials and errors have been repeated to improve environmental conditions of offices and efficiency of jobs. In the case of such productivity improvement in organizations for assembling and transporting industrial parts and products, the results of achieved improvements can be analyzed and evaluated objectively by tracing the paths of those parts and products moved from the factories. However, in the case of organizations for carrying out such business services as clerical works, sales, planning, etc., it is impossible to evaluate those services and works just by observing things, since those services and works are not related directly to things. Every organization, to begin with, is made to achieve a large scale job or work with combined power of many people when it is beyond one's capacity. In any of such organizations, interactions between and among those people is indispensable. This is why the present inventor has come to reach a conclusion that every organization can be analyzed and evaluated to improve its productivity by analyzing interactions between and among the people in each subject organization.
The JP-A No. 2003-85347 is a well-known example for analyzing such interactions in organizations. According to the method disclosed in the JP-A No. 2003-85347, such log information as speech data, header information, etc. in a mailing list is analyzed by relating it to a specific event and/or a topic of conversation.
The JP-A No. 2004-355308 also discloses an example of such interaction detections. According to the JP-A No. 2004-355308, an index is added to an interaction when an infrared tag attached to a member and its infrared image are photographed. Furthermore, according to the position of the infrared tag in the image, detection is made for a state in which members are meeting each other, as well as a state in which the members are in the same area.
The JP-A No. 2005-327156 also discloses a technique for grasping a friendly relationship between and among people using wireless tags. Concretely, a tag reader reads the position of a wireless tag attached to each member and the position locus is recorded. And by tracing the locus, the friendly relationship of a member with others is known.
On the other hand, the JP-A No. 2006-228150 discloses a technique for obtaining “a unique point” of a pattern extracted from analysis object interaction data by comparing the pattern with a pattern extracted from stored interaction data, thereby extracting a characteristic pattern of the object interaction data according to the extracted “unique point”.